Mexico, playing at home, was the better team. They possessed the ball more, created more scoring chances (17 shots to 1) and corner kicks (15-2) and rarely stopped surging, even after a questionable call went against them early, bookended by an undeniably bad call late.

Facing a young and inexperienced U.S. defense, they effectively turned the last five minutes of Tuesday’s World Cup qualifier at Azteca Stadium into target practice. For once, it wasn’t enough.

“You’re never going to come to a place like Azteca and go out and have it nice and easy,” U.S. goalkeeper Brad Guzan, a former USC player, said after the 0-0 draw. “So we knew at some point, it was going to come, the pressure was going to come, and we were able to deal with it.”

As a result, the man who wound up on the hot seat at the end was not the one some people expected going in. The injustice of it all no doubt was still sinking in when Jose Manuel De la Torre, the coach of soccer-mad Mexico, was asked afterward whether he expected to keep his job.

“I’m not responsible for that decision,” De la Torre replied coolly. “We have worked hard. The federation has the last word, they and the owners take that decision.”

It’s one measure how far the game has come in the United States that his counterpart, Jurgen Klinsmann, likely would have been grilled — though not nearly as quickly nor audaciously — if his team had lost.

Most American sports fans are distracted by the NCAA tournament, or by the incredible run LeBron James is on, perhaps even waiting for spring training. And to be fair, despite all the history hanging over this game — in a place where the Americans had managed exactly one tie in 14 previous tries — it’s still early enough in qualifying for the 2014 World Cup for both teams to get in under the wire comfortably.

De la Torre made that argument, pointing out that Panama, the surprise leader of the CONCACAF group, has five points and his team has three, with the potential for 21 more points still out there.

The Americans are snugly in second with four, but the bigger surprise might be that finally, there are some expectations for the U.S. side, That was reinforced by the stir a story in the Sporting News kicked up at the start of last week. Quoting unidentified players and people close to the team, it portrayed Klinsmann, a great German player and one-term World Cup coach, as out of touch with the sentiment in his locker room and a poor tactician to boot.

That the U.S. team beat Costa Rica 1-0 in a blizzard in Colorado a few days later did little to quiet the restive mood. Some players were upset with how he benched Carlos Bocanegra, a stalwart of the national team and long its captain. Others were disgruntled over what they viewed as favorable treatment afforded a handful of German imports — all four the sons of U.S. servicemen — and how Klinsmann often kept everyone uncertain about their spot by posting his starting lineups at the last minute.

Klinsmann had employed a different lineup in each of his previous two dozen games and Tuesday night was no different. The most criticism was aimed his defensive back four, only one of whom — an aging and increasingly fragile DaMarcus Beasley — boasted any real international experience.